


as if death itself was undone

by higgsbosonblues



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Asphyxiation, Autoerotic Asphyxiation, Choking, M/M, Masturbation, it's the kink with feelings bandwagon, like there's a lot of it and it's intense, look who's back on her bullshit, mostly just the choking tbh, oh boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 10:21:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16116419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/higgsbosonblues/pseuds/higgsbosonblues
Summary: If he was asked, he’d never admit it, but maybe it’s true to say that on occasion he doesn’t know when to stop.





	as if death itself was undone

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. I haven't written anything Dan/Max for a while because of, you know, fucking everything that's happened in F1 during the last two months, but uhh then [this](https://66.media.tumblr.com/d7162656964b0c587b22c168ff6b7d7d/tumblr_ozqlq73SaI1w6uy3eo2_400.gif) happened and, well, I am just a human with my fucked-up desires and so here's 4500 words of gratuitous asphyxiation porn. It's very explicit about the choking and general lack of breath so please swerve if that's an issue for you, but I don't...think? there's anything else to warn for?
> 
> Title is from Blinding by Florence and the Machine.
> 
> Many thanks go to bonotje for the sending of inspirational pics, gifs, videos and on one memorable occasion audio files, and for the general cheerleading and excellence.
> 
> B, this is of course for you.

It has been gently pointed out to Max in the past that he has a somewhat warped idea of what constitutes an acceptable level of violence in everyday life. Which is not to say he’s prone to cruelty, or that he views fighting as a way to solve his problems: he’s not stupid, he knows what people are referring to when they say things like _hey, take a breath_ and _maybe chill out for a while, yeah?_ and it’s not his own temper but the one people are worried he’s inherited. Generally that’s not a discussion he has any interest in taking further, and so he’s learned to shut it down before it ever starts, learned the particular blankness to school his expression into and the right way to stiffen his spine to brook no further debate.

If he was asked, he’d never admit it, but maybe it’s true to say that on occasion he doesn’t know when to stop.

The argument actually isn’t an argument at all: Max has been flicking rolled-up pieces of paper at Dan’s hair for exactly seven minutes so far and keeping score of how many little white pellets land in his curls. He’s on the verge of breaking double figures when a misjudged throw hits Dan in the temple, Dan flinching in a way that’s both endearing and extremely satisfying and almost dropping his unnecessarily oversized phone on to the tiled floor.

“Jesus, Max,” Dan says, wiping at his face with the back of his hand and wrinkling his nose at the wet. “Is that spit? You’re fucking gross.”

And Max is, and he’s perfectly happy with that and anyhow Dan is hardly one to talk, so he throws the damp little wad he’s been rolling between thumb and forefinger. With the deadly reflexes of someone who gets paid a lot of money not to drive into things at speed and who also spends an alarming amount of time playing FIFA with enough competence to not make a total fool of himself on the internet, he manages to hit Dan right between the eyes. “Max, fuck _off,_ ” Dan says, exasperated, which is always nice because while Dan is free and easy with the four-letter words in everyday life, it’s rare to hear them uttered with any kind of heat instead of scattered through his speech as punctuation or a nervous tic.

“You’re a little shit, you know that?” he says, picking up the empty bottle of seltzer he’s been drinking and lobbing it at Max’s head. Max mostly manages to duck, and the bottle glances off his shoulder and goes spinning across the coffee table instead, scattering crumpled tissues and Dan’s headphones in its wake.

Max flips him off, laughing, and Dan lunges at him, not quite committing to the movement until Max adds the other hand too, waves them for good measure. He goes in head-first, briefly knocking the air out of Max’s chest with a sound like a pillow being punched. They tussle briefly, Max tipping them sideways so the wrestling takes place mostly against the sofa cushions rather than risking one of them doing something dumb like sliding to the floor and breaking a wrist.

Dan’s slippery as an eel, squirming out from beneath him and scrabbling at his hoodie, bunching handfuls of the soft jersey where it pulls slightly tight over his shoulders and leaning against the back of the couch to give himself leverage, attempting to twist Max off altogether. Max flails a little, undignified, manages to grab one hand on to Dan’s shoulder and haul himself back up. His free hand goes to Dan’s throat, pinning him in place, and at that point he learns that an absence of movement can be as sudden, as violent as any slap.

Dan goes _rigid_ beneath him, his entire body freezing in a way that would be comical if Max wasn’t so completely taken aback by it; the only movement is the slight spasmodic twitch of the corded tendons in his neck and the stuttering jump of his Adam’s apple beneath Max’s hand, like he’s trying to swallow and not quite managing it.

The effect is shocking enough that Max stops moving too. Occasionally, Dan has the effect that some rock stars and celebrities have where he walks into a room and his sheer presence causes a minute shift in the air, enough for everyone in the vicinity to pause what they’re doing for a few seconds and stare. It’s happened a couple of times when Max has been with him. He’d ribbed Dan about afterwards, crude references to wet knickers designed to have Dan batting at his shoulder in simultaneous horror and pride. He’s always figured he was immune to Dan’s charms, whatever they were. He sees the guy on a near daily basis, after all: he knows the slightly underwhelming reality of him, Dan the human instead of the racing driver, the future champion, brand Ricciardo. All of which means it comes as something of a surprise when the careful stillness Dan suddenly starts radiating leaches right beneath his skin and grinds him to a halt as effectively as the hand he’s using to hold Dan in place and - oh.

Belatedly it dawns on Max that it’s the hand he’s got curved around Dan’s throat that appears to be the focal point of his sudden lack of movement, followed swiftly by the realisation that perhaps Dan isn’t per se _keen_ on being choked without warning during what was after all a relatively gentle scuffle. He makes an uncertain movement, not quite pulling away even though it would probably be sensible to do so. Instead he just jostles Dan’s chin lightly as he tries to move in several directions at once, and Dan blinks, his eyelashes fluttering in a surprisingly appealing way. He swallows before he speaks, his eyelashes sweeping up to meet Max’s gaze and doing nothing to make Max feel any less dumbfounded. The silence stretches out between them, just long enough for Max to become hyper-aware of the way Dan licks over his lips and the way that tiny movement - just the very tip of his tongue catching on the uneven points of his teeth and dragging over the rough terrain of dry skin that frosts his underlip - travels through his jaw and throat, a second-hand shockwave of movement travelling up the muscles of Max’s arm. Dan blinks again, slow as syrup, and in the time it takes his eyes to open again Max becomes aware on a very visceral level just how fragile a human throat is.

This realisation is closely followed - overridden, really - with a sudden desire to _squeeze_ that Max doesn’t really know what to do with, and he’s grateful when Dan parts his lips to speak. Less so when it becomes apparent that the pressure, slight as it is, on Dan’s vocal chords have the twin effects of rendering Dan’s voice a little bit raw, and sending some interesting vibrations through the damp palm of his hand. Even less still when he takes a shuddering breath and says, hoarse, “Keep going.”

Max has no blueprint for this. He’s done a lot in his relatively few years on earth, and he likes to think he can cope pretty well with whatever weird shit is thrown at him - god, three years of PR activations alone have taught him that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in his admittedly pretty basic philosophy, and most of them taste bad - but this is something he has no idea how to proceed with. After a few seconds of chewing at both his lip and the uncertain sensation, he has to admit to himself that he kind of likes it. Dan is just looking up at him as though Max has any idea where to steer this, eyes wide and wet, a little bit red where he’d coughed. Max shifts his weight minutely - he’s perched on the edge of the couch which is barely containing Dan’s torso as it is and he’s in real danger of sliding off on to the floor. Dan blinks when he moves, almost a flinch, and Max laughs not because it’s funny but because this entire situation is so completely fucking surreal that he doesn’t know what else to do.

Dan’s face flickers with nerves for a split second and then relaxes into a slight smile. He hesitates and then reaches out, placing his hands on Max’s sides with a measured grace and urging him to the side. There’s a brief struggle as Max swings one leg over Dan’s splayed legs and ends up mostly straddling his thighs, holding his weight slightly off Dan’s legs because whatever this is, he’s still not entirely sure how much he’s allowed to touch.

Their eyes meet as Max settles himself, and for one horrible second the mood snags, awkward, Dan’s hands tensing where they still clutch at his waist and his expression briefly shuttering into embarrassment. Fuck. Max breathes out through his mouth, chooses not to examine why the thought of whatever this is disintegrating into a joke threatens to send him into a panic spiral, and tightens his hand around Dan’s throat again, just enough to demonstrate intent.

Dan’s head tilts back, exposing the long lines of his jaw, dark with stubble, the point of his Adam’s apple thrown into shadow where Max’s hand rests just below it. He exhales slow and smooth through dry lips, the muscles in his throat working and then relaxing beneath Max’s grasp. His hands squeeze Max’s sides, just once, and then retreat to fold across his stomach, oddly chaste once again. The effect of his folded hands and tipped-back head combine to give him a peaceful air, like he’s about to meditate, and Max can’t help but laugh again and push up with the heel of his hand, squeezing hard enough that he feels the gristle of Dan’s throat beneath the layers of skin and flesh.

“Fuck,” Dan grits out, a sharp inhalation that reads as involuntary, his body dropping instantly into reflex. His hips jerk up too, and he’s trying to inhale but the pressure of Max’s hand means all he can do is croak, his body jolting against Max’s where his weight rests on Dan’s thighs.

He only leaves it a few seconds before he relents the pressure of his hand, nowhere near enough for Dan to be in any kind of danger, but Dan sucks in a deep breath that ends in a wheeze. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice sounds all wrong, too intense, a little shaky, but fuck it. “Carry on?”

“Mm,” Dan murmurs, blinking up at Max slowly, pressing his lips together and then parting them in a soft sigh as Max twitches his fingers against the hollow of his neck. “Yeah, yeah, more.”

“Is this - right, OK,” Max says, more to himself than to Dan, but Dan nods once anyway, his expression weirdly solemn. It’s not a look he’s used to seeing on Dan but it suits him, somehow, his eyes dark and somber. The room is silent except for their breathing and the slight rustle of cloth on cloth as they shift against each other. It’s like the moments spent in the car watching the lights, synapses firing at double speed, every sense heightened.

He tightens his hands again and Dan’s back arches off the couch entirely, a shudder rolling through him that ends in flexed hips and a bitten-off sound that could be a whine. Max is entranced in a way he can’t quite get a firm grip on: this isn’t like any kind of sex he’s ever had, either in mind or deed, though his dick throbs against the zipper of his jeans and Dan is obviously, shamelessly hard, his erection distorting the fabric of his sweatpants between the juncture of Max’s thighs. He grunts quietly, a stupid animal noise, pushing his thumbs into the soft meat below Dan’s chin. Dan’s stubble prickles against the sensitive webbing connecting thumb to forefinger, a maddening itch. He’s a little less careful with it this time, feeling each and every tendon in his hands constrict and the way Dan’s flesh gives so easily against his grip, the curves of him rewritten. It’s an ugly feeling, the desire to push it further scraping at the base of his spine, but it’s overlaid with a calm lucidity that has him noting the flicker of Dan’s eyelashes and counting off the seconds since he’s taken a proper breath. As soon as he feels Dan begin to struggle in earnest, he relaxes his grasp.

Dan groans, actually _groans_ , one hand fumbling at his wrist as if to urge him on. “You can do it for longer,” he says, staring at the ceiling instead of Max’s face as though he can’t bear to see his reaction. _Jesus_ , Max thinks. “Please.”

Max has to take a breath then, suddenly prickling hot and cold all over and with the sense that this situation is careering further and further from his understanding. “Let me just - fuck, hang on,” he says, shifting his weight and sitting back slightly to unzip his hoodie, pulling it off and getting it snagged on the winding knob of his watch and _god,_ could anything in his life just go smoothly for once? He finally manages to get the damn thing off and drops it to the floor, hesitating with his fingers curled around the hem of his t-shirt. He doesn’t know why he’s undressing, really - Dan is showing no inclination to join in and Max has a strong suspicion that if they have to sit up and untangle their limbs to figure out the logistics of getting fully naked, one or both of them will lose their nerve entirely - but Dan nods, his gaze flicking from Max’s waist to his eyes in a rapid back-and-forth beam of desire.

He almost forgets to take off his beanie hat before yanking the t-shirt off, thankfully catching himself before he ends up stuck with his shirt over his face and tossing it over his shoulder. It lands on Dan’s foot, and Dan huffs out a soft laugh and doesn’t attempt to move it.

“Your trainer’s been doing his job,” Dan murmurs, then clears his throat as his voice snags. His gaze traces the contours of Max’s shoulders and neck with something like hunger, and normally Max would want to preen and flex, show off the body he’s proud of sculpting from the scrawny teenage skin he’s so recently shed. That’s the kind of thing he’d do to precipitate a fuck, though, and he doesn’t think that’s how this is going to end, so he stays quiet and instead tilts his weight forward. He touches Dan’s collarbones with a reverence that feels foreign, feeling the way the bones curve beneath the soft fabric of his t-shirt. There’s a small hole where the ribbed collar has begun to fray away from the body of the shirt, and Max touches his fingertip to the exposed skin, the softness of it so different to the softness of cotton. Dan closes his eyes and exhales, shuddery, as Max trails the rough edges of his nails up the column of his throat, the stubble rasping as it’s brushed the wrong way.

“Have you done this before?” Max asks, can’t keep his curiosity from spilling over even though speaking risks breaking the drugged quiet that hangs over their strange tableau.

Dan doesn’t open his eyes when he replies, licking over his lips reflexively before he speaks. “Not with anyone else.”

It takes Max a beat or two to understand the implication, and he can’t stop his fingers from curling with want when it clicks into place. “To yourself?”

Dan nods minutely, knocking his chin against Max’s knuckles as he does so. Max extends his fingers, brushes the pads down the smooth angle of Dan’s jaw. He can’t stop himself imagining it, how could he? Dan in a hotel bathroom after a gala with one hand working his cock, wet and shining in the bluish light, a silk tie looped into a ligature around his throat. Fuck. “How?”

“With a belt, sometimes,” Dan admits. His voice is soft, dreamy, and Max butterflies his hands, pressing his thumbs to the cartilage that breaks the gentle inward dip of his neck. “But it’s so dangerous. Imagine being found like that.” He smiles gently, eyes still closed. “It happened to a guy in a band back home, when I was a kid.” He cracks one eye open and grins a little wider, a little clearer, more like the one Max is used to seeing. “Before your time.”

Max rolls his eyes a little at that because it's expected, but he's still caught on the mental image of Dan with black leather cutting into the soft flesh below his chin, the buckle leaving red marks on the skin. “Jesus.”

Dan shrugs slightly, more a twitch of his upper body with the way he’s crumpled into the corner the sofa makes, and closes his eyes again. “Yeah, well, I know it’s stupid and risky. Most of the time I just use my hand.” He brings up his right arm to demonstrate, curving his own fingers around his throat and pushing up a little, tipping his head back as if worried that Max can’t see properly. There are red marks across his tanned skin already, tracing the pressure of Max’s hands, and Dan’s fingers fit over them perfectly. Dan doesn’t squeeze with his fingertips the way Max had; his forefinger and thumb are flared, the tips curved slightly backwards in unconscious hyperflexion. “Like this,” he says quietly, and the catch in his voice is so vulnerable that it makes Max’s head spin.

“What -” he begins, but Dan cuts him off.

“Can we not?” he says, opening his eyes and lowering his hand, bringing both up to touch Max’s thighs tentatively through his jeans. “Talk about it, I mean?”

Max nods, temporarily rendered speechless by the heat from Dan’s palms. He blows a breath, reaching down to adjust his erection where it’s pressing painfully against his zip. The hint of a smirk flickers across Dan’s face. “Shut up,” Max says, and it’s a throwaway comment but he feels Dan squirm beneath him, hears the tiny sound he makes in the back of his throat. As he flexes his fingers and lays them across the hot skin of Dan’s throat once again he finds himself wondering at Dan and all his hidden depths, the fractal points of his personality that so few other people ever get to see. Dan who is brave and fierce with a smile that deflects just as well as his oversized shades, Dan with his ugly patterned shirts and dumb jokes and terrible musical taste, Dan with his throat bared in submission, shaking beneath the anchor of Max’s tense hands, his spine a graceful upward curve and tongue caught between his teeth.

He holds his grip a little longer this time, counting to ten and then fifteen internally, then loosening his grip for five and squeezing again. Dan makes feral sounds beneath him, guttural grunts, and before Max has loosened his hands again he’s fumbling at his own waistband, tugging at the knotted drawstring.

 “Is it - Can I -” he stutters between gasping breaths, and Max nods and mumbles _yeah, yeah, go ahead_ and has to close his eyes for a moment when Dan lifts his hips slightly, just enough to shove his sweatpants and boxers down to mid-thigh and get a hand around his cock. The grip he uses mirrors the delicate way he’d held his own throat, long fingers loose and always moving, tracing out the shape of the crown and gathering the liquid seeping from the tip. His movements are fast and light, so different to the tight fist Max prefers to use on himself, and he loses himself just watching for a moment, forgetting his hands resting on Dan’s collarbones, until Dan shifts impatiently and groans in a way that’s clearly meant to urge him on.

"Sorry,” Max mutters and tightens his hands without warning, his hands carrying out the movement before his brain has finished thinking about it and before Dan has time to inhale in preparation. Dan’s eyes open in reflexive shock and his lips part in an attempt at a gasp, tongue working, and Max thinks of the way saints look in old paintings, the kind he’d never paid attention to at school. Their eyes raised to the heavens, mouths agape. He thinks he understands the appeal, now.

Dan shudders and jerks beneath him, and Max squeezes harder even though he can feel the way Dan’s throat convulses as his body struggles for oxygen. Dan arches off the sofa, holding his weight through his feet and shoulders, his thighs spreading until they’re braced tightly against Max’s own. The warm solidity anchors him, giving him something to push back against as he takes more and more of his weight through his arms, crushing Dan’s windpipe incrementally further. This time he only stops when Dan’s lips begin to turn purple, and when he relaxes his hands Dan takes a huge and shuddering breath that sounds like it hurts, rattling deep in his chest, the skin of his cheeks blooming suddenly pink as the blood supply rushes back in. Dan moans, tosses his head the side. He’s slick with sweat beneath Max’s hands, trembling all over, the muscles in his forearm tense where he works his cock.

“Don’t stop,” Dan gasps. “I’m so close, fuck.” He’s moving all over within the tight confines of the sofa and Max’s thighs, trembling and writhing as his chest heaves. Max breathes his name, a wet exhale, waiting for Dan to inhale and then choking him again. His hips are moving of their own accord, flexing involuntarily against the folds of Dan’s pants where they’re pushed down his thighs.

Robbing Dan of something as fundamental as his breath makes Max agonisingly aware of his own, each inhale feeling like a luxury. He’s panting, greedy with it, light-headed with the surfeit of oxygen to his brain and the surreality of Dan spread out below him. He keeps his grip firm, watching Dan’s face closely to catalogue his reactions, the way his eyes roll back in his head. He’s clammy with sweat, pale and bluish beneath the golden tan, and Max knows with a deadly certaintythat doesn’t need to be taught that he only has a few seconds left before Dan loses consciousness altogether. Dan convulses beneath him, his hips jackknifing into the loose slick curl of his own fist, and then he’s coming, tearing himself to shreds, thick ropes of come covering his hand. Max loosens his grip as soon as Dan’s orgasm hits him, and Dan sucks in a desperate breath, a glottal gasp that ends in a coughing fit even as he’s still shaking through the aftershocks.

“Dan,” Max says in a tone of reverence that would make him cringe if he wasn’t so completely fucking poleaxed by the way Dan is shaking and coughing beneath him, lips spit-wet and eyes flooded with tears. Dan flaps the hand that isn’t covered in come at him in a dismissive _wait a second_ gesture, coughing from deep in his chest, his thighs still twitching with aftershocks. Max sits atop him, dumbstruck, only now noticing the red weals spreading across his tanned skin, the faint tracery of broken capillaries below his right eye.

As if he’s reading Max’s mind, Dan lifts his clean hand and touches his own throat experimentally, brushing his fingertips over the warm skin. It doesn’t look bad enough to bruise, but there’s a faint smear of red dots spattered across his Adam’s apple like a rope burn. Max turns his hands palm-up, flexing the stiff and aching fingers; the skin between forefinger and thumb is red to match Dan’s throat.

“Come here,” Dan murmurs, voice still hoarse, and jiggles his knees slightly so that Max tips forward. It’s only just before their lips meet that Max realises with a shock that they haven’t kissed yet. After the casual cruelty of his hands around Dan’s throat, the tender way he kisses is something of a shock, and Max sinks into it, sighing. The kiss is oddly chaste, their tongues touching lightly, the crevices of Dan’s lips more pronounced where he’s bitten tiny channels into the swollen flesh. After the terrifying intimacy of watching Dan’s vision cloud over with hypoxia, a kiss feels like a commonplace pleasure, too small in comparison, and he pulls away to bury his head in Dan’s neck instead.

Dan shuffles beneath him and pushes at Max’s body until he has one thigh firmly between Max’s legs, and Max rocks down against him gratefully, rutting, the pressure only making him aware of just how turned on he’d become. Dan murmurs encouragement into his hair, the words lost between Max’s harsh breaths, and Max can’t help but open his mouth and bite down as he comes in his jeans,pressed against the firm heat of Dan’s thigh, stubble rasping against the enamel of his teeth.

Dan breathes his name as Max sinks his teeth in, barely a whisper through the roaring in his ears, and Max realises he’s got his fists bunched in the fabric of Dan’s t-shirt, damp with sweat and crumpled beyond recognition. He finds he can’t quite bring himself to relax his grip, nor to raise his head into the light, so he stays where he is for a moment, breathing in the scent of shaving cream caught in the crease between Dan’s ear and neck and trying not to think about the rapidly cooling wetness in his pants.

“You’re squashing me,” Dan says after a few moments, gently as if he thinks Max might be falling asleep, curving one hand over Max’s shoulder in something unnervingly close to a caress. Max groans, acquiesces, sits up slowly to allow Dan to move. Dan winces, wiping his sticky hand on his t-shirt and flexing his fingers, hissing a breath through his teeth. “Pins and needles,” he answers to Max’s questioning glance, and Max hesitates then reaches over to take Dan’s hands in his own, rubbing at them gently, encouraging the blood to flow.

“Thanks,” Dan says quietly, watching him work, and Max shrugs, only slightly uncomfortable with the intensity of Dan’s gaze as his skin warms in Max’s hands.

“It’s fine,” he says, and Dan opens his mouth again to speak. “No,” Max cuts him off. “I mean it, it’s fine, all of it.”

Dan closes his mouth again and breathes out through his nose, a weary sound. “I’ve never trusted anyone to do it before.”

Max nods, still staring at their hands, and Dan turns his palm up to interlink their fingers, the gesture oddly shy. There’s an ache in Max’s knuckles, the joints tired from the resistance they’d found against the thick muscles in Dan’s neck. It’s a good kind of pain, clean and pure like the ache in his thighs after running barefoot on sand. He thinks for a moment of being a kid, playing on the beach, the endless expanse of the sea, holding his breath and diving to try to touch the ocean floor.

“Well,” he says, running the his thumbnail over Dan’s bitten cuticles gently. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Dan’s cheeks curve into a smile. “Now you do.”

 


End file.
